“A single neutral writer could present all the different arguments on some subject, all using the same writing style. Readers of such presentations would have a better chance of drawing conclusions on each subject based on the logic of arguments, instead of writing styles. The fact that we aren’t very interested in these sort of presentations suggests that we aren’t very interested in reducing the influence of other writing style related factors.”

“As I stated this summer, I view the process of urban gentrification as being driven by hospitals and universities. They have the money, they are expanding in cities (during my road trip this summer, I saw this in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis), and they hire people with lots of education credentials, who then move into the city. But these credentialed workers are not necessarily creative. They are not opening new vistas or making new discoveries or overthrowing social conventions. Many of them are administrators who, if anything, get in the way of the creative individuals in their institutions.”